People’s Republic of Corinthians

Corinthians supporters during a local futsal championship at their main headquarters in the Bom Retiro neighborhood in São Paulo. Every weekend, members from different neighborhoods in São Paulo get together in the headquarters to organize futsal games and barbecues.

In this week’s issue of the magazine, Ben McGrath writes about Sport Club Corinthians Paulista, or Corinthians, a wildly popular Brazilian soccer club that McGrath refers to as “the team of the povo—the people.” Corinthians first grabbed McGrath’s attention after a CNN report called the team’s followers the “craziest fans” in all of sports. “Thirty thousand supporters followed the team from Brazil to Nagoya and Yokohama for the Club World Cup last year, among them people who quit their jobs, divorced their wives, mortgaged their homes, and sold their refrigerators to make the pilgrimage,” McGrath writes. He also describes allegations of corruption and a fabled history of violence that has prompted some stadiums to enclose the pitch in barbed-wire fencing.

The Brazil-based photographer Sebastián Liste spent time at the club’s training center and among the stalwart fans to capture the fervor that surrounds both the team and Brazil’s hosting of the upcoming 2014 World Cup. “After many years documenting daily life in this country, I can say that soccer games are the most impressive microcosm of Brazilian society, historically framed between endless happiness and extreme violence,” Liste said. “During the ninety minutes of a football game, and while I was photographing the Gaviões da Fiel,” the largest Corinthians fan group, “I was surrounded and dotted with sweat and tears, drums and screaming, arms, stomps and flags … Normally, they don’t welcome many guys with cameras, so I had to meet the key people involved in this world to get access and blend in with the fans at the stadium … singing, dancing, sweating.”